Blogished

From today's Washingtonpost.com OnBalance blog....

Fashion Bullies?

Last week the Wall Street Journal ran this article about "fashion bullies" in middle and high schools who berate other kids for not wearing the "right" clothes. The saddest part of the article to me is not the bullying aspect but the mom featured in the article--the one who drags her sixth grader to Neiman Marcus to pick out couture clothes, which then don't pass muster with her peers because they're not the "right" designer clothes. Are you kidding me?

To me, far more alarming than the bullying is the idea that parents are actually willing to buy couture clothes for kids--which designers are "right" or "wrong" is irrelevant. It's bad enough when one of my kids comes home with a stain on their clothes from Target or the consignment store; I'd have to slit my wrists if the shirt or pair of pants had cost $150.

Meanwhile, every other day you read about the housing crisis and how droves of people are having to foreclose on their houses, or how the average American has something like $10,000 of credit card debt. Why are parents--at least some of whom fall into the group who are carrying $10,000 (and many times, well beyond that) willing to "shop their families broke"?

How about instead of (or at least in addition to) programs that teach girls to navigate peer pressure to dress a certain way or be a certain size, someone offer programs to teach girls about money and how trying to "keep up with the Joneses" can seriously ruin your life? Someone other than Suze Orman, that is, who schools could actually afford to hire as a speaker.

Just reading about this couple would be enough to scare me straight!

Up front, let me give the disclaimer that I have friends who have these kinds of email addresses and I'm not trying to pass judgement or condescend to anyone. I just don't get it; maybe someone can help me understand that I'm off base on this if they feel I am.

That said, what's with women whose email address is "thejonses@whatever.com" or, worse, "myhusbandsname@whatever.com"?

It's not like email costs anything or is troublesome to set up--anyone can have multiple, free email addresses. I don't understand why a person would have a shared email address with their spouse and not just set up their own account. Is it a trust thing? An "aren't we cute?" thing? An "everything we have is ours together" thing?

I just don't get it--to me it's saying I'm just part of a couple or I'm just part of a family and not an individual. Isn't it a little self-deprecating? It seems so 50s to me--"oh, I don't deserve my own email address and honestly, I don't really get how this new-fangled internet mail works anyway, so I just leave it to my husband to deal with."

I don't know--it just makes me sad. I know couples who have the "myinitialandhisinitialsmiths@whateverland.com" address, conveying the message "we're so close we share everything and have no secrets," yet several of those very same couples have broken up because one of them cheated. And the "thesmiths@perfectfamily.com" just strikes me as incredibly sad; more often than not the women who have that email address are stay-home moms and to me it says that they've totally subjugated themselves to their husbands and kids and no longer see themselves as people who are worthy of their own personal experiences.

It reminds me of the address labels with the cartoon pictures of each family member, looking smug and perfect. Yes, the same labels I used to have when I was trying my best to play happy family.

I mean, is it a permission thing, as in the husband tells the wife she can't have her own account? Does he even check it, or does the woman just set it up that way? Would a woman have her friends address paper mail to "my friend and your husband" and intend for the letter or card to be read by both? I don't even mean in a secrecy way, just a friendship way and an interpersonal relationship way. Do my emails to Susie So-and-So need to be written as if I'm addressing both she and her husband, or the whole family?

Anyway, I just don't get it--it depresses me.

Slim Jim follow up

Really quick before Mimi kills me with her whining to leave the house--last weekend I went to the American Dietetic Association's annual meeting's exhibit hall with Patrick and ConAgra, maker of Slim Jim, had a booth. I asked several of the people staffing their booth my question about Slim Jim and why it's the only product not complying with FDA labelling requirements and none of them had an answer. They took my email address and assured me someone would contact me to let me know what the answer is.

Of course the email address I gave was my hotmail address because my gmail address is too long and complicated, and as of yesterday when I was finally able to get into my inbox for once, I had not heard from anyone yet. Of course now I can't get into hotmail at all and who knows when I'll be able to--but then again, even if I can get in, I wonder what the chances are that anyone would actually contact me.

When/if they do I'll let you know what they say.

Hotmail Sucks

For a few months now I've noticed that hotmail is getting harder and harder to log on to. Have any of you (since there are only like 2 of you reading this can you do me a favor and ask around?) had the same problems? It's driving me crazy because I hate paper mail and whenever possible opt for online statements or bills and 75% of the time now just can't get in to hotmail and therefore can't access the information in there--of course my regular emails, but also bills and, more importantly, the archive of whatever stuff I have in there--various account information like password info, login info, etc.

What responsiblity does hotmail or other free email service have to users? Or actually any email service, free or not. We never question whether or not bills or information sent by US mail will arrive--it's a given that anything sent via the USPS will reach the recipient. But now that almost every single service provider--banks, credit card companies, utilities-- who used to rely on US mail now encourages paperless communication, which is entirely dependant on email; isn't the assumption that email providers have some similar obligation to their customers to ensure that information gets delivered?

For hotmail, one of the most reputable email services, to suddenly not be working 75% of the time--how is that acceptable?

I conducted what Patrick calls "fuck-it-off" research on the subject--e.g. googled "problems accessing hotmail" and clicked on the first link and took that information as the gospel truth). Here's what I found:

Ask Leo. Apparently Leo is a computer guru who joined Microsoft in 1983 and therefore should be as reliable a source of information as any on this topic.

The problem with Leo's advice (and it's not Leo's fault; he is merely illustrating exactly what I'm complaining about) is that unfortunately contacting MSN requires you to log on to hotmail--which is exactly what the problem is--that I CAN'T log on.

I then went to MSN and used their form to contact hotmail customer support--I filled in the form and clicked "send"--and got a page saying "Sorry the page you requested is not available."

WTF? So apparently there is no way to contact hotmail customer support--no phone number, as Leo pointed out (unless Leo is wrong; I'm going under the assumption that he's not), no way to log on to the site since www.hotmail.com won't even come up when I try to go to it, and no way to get into my inbox.

If Mimi weren't sitting here waiting for me to take her somewhere I'd look into it more--I'm sure there is some sort of regulating body (or maybe not?) in charge of making sure email providers make subscribers' email accessible. If any of you have any advice/answers about this issue let me know.

Badge Magic

This year Matthew moved up from Bear Cub to Webelo (pronounced "we blow"; Patrick found the irony of that name as it relates to cub scouts quite amusing).

For the past three years his Cub Scout uniform included a dark blue shirt covered with badges. This year he came home with a new tan shirt and informed me that I needed to take all the badges off the old shirt and sew them on the new shirt, along with several new ones. The easy part was removing the badges from the old shirt--Matthew was amazed at my domesticity as I ripped the stitches out. He is very appreciative of any June Cleaver thing I do and praises me highly for the slightest thing, such as removing badges from a shirt.

As soon as I removed the badges he started hounding me about when I was going to sew them on the new shirt. I told him I had to buy a sewing kit then I'd sew them.

That night I went to a Cabi party at a friend's house (suddenly I have a weirdly suburban mom social life, complete with a dozen or more new friends....I'm not sure what caused this sudden popularity after 11 years of never being invited to stuff like Bunko or girls night or whatever. I guess my new status of divorced then remarried to a hot man who cooks, cleans, landscapes his yard and adores me has some kind of mysterious allure) (Oh, and Cabi is an outrageously expensive line of clothing available only at home shows, the apparent cornerstone of suburban mom socialization. But who am I to cut because there I was with a glass of Sangria in one hand and my checkbook in the other?) and was talking to another mom and mentioned something about the imminent badge sewing.

She looked at me like I was crazy--"haven't you heard of Badge Magic?" Was she kidding? No I hadn't heard of Badge Magic--could it be that such a thing existed? Why hadn't I invented it? She went on and on, saying NOBODY sews badges on anymore--then another girl chimed in--"Sew badges? Are you crazy?" The whole gathering launched into a collective sales pitch about the wonders of Badge Magic and how now way can you even sew on those badges without butchering your fingers.

The next day I said to Matthew "Guess what? They sell this stuff called Badge Magic so I won't have to sew all the badges on!" He looked crestfallen and said that Badge Magic doesn't work, that the badges fall off after one time, that it's terrible, I CAN'T use it. But all the moms use it, I insisted, telling him about my conversation the previous night. No, he insisted--it didn't work, all those moms were wrong, you HAVE to sew the badges on.

So I bought the sewing kit and spent an hour last night sewing two of the badges on. My finger was raw and I had to stop after just those two--I still have four more to go. But Matthew was so excited, exclaiming about how I was the best mom in the world, what a great sewer I am, how I had sewn the badges in exactly the right spots.

I guess Badge Magic is for moms who don't have divorce guilt; I need to invest in a thimble.

Slim Jim

Can anyone tell me why Slim Jim is the only consumable product in the whole country--or even outside it--that doesn't have to include nutritional content information on the wrapper? Not only that but I defy you to find out the nutritional content on their website.

I did manage to find the nutritional information on the web via a blogger on lowcarbfreedom.com who was ranting about not being able to find it either.

You'd think the makers of Slim Jim would want to market to all the low-carb enthusiasts out there. Low calories, only like 1 carb--even sort of low fat. Weirdly it has 0g fiber, which I find odd since when you eat it you'd swear one of the main ingredients has to be paper because you can feel those little fibers in your mouth.

I just don't understand why any other thing even remotely considered to be digestible--gum, tic-tacs, even toothpaste--has its nutritional content information somehow printed on the label, no matter how impossibly small it may be, yet the makers of Slim Jim have apparently opted out of complying with the law that says you have to include that stuff on the label. I just don't get it--wouldn't you think that the FDA would force them to start labeling it? And take it off the market until they complied?

thirtysomething--is that you?

In the trailers, HBO's new show Tell Me You Love Me looked--at least to me--like a modernized remake of the awesome mid-80s show, thirtysomething. I loved that show and couldn't wait to see this new apparent rip-off of the classic yuppie sitcom.

Last Sunday, the night it premiered, I tried to get the kids to bed before 9 but ended up missing the first 15 minutes. I sat down at 9:15 and turned the TV on. There, on Patrick's 53" TV, was a girl shimmying out of her jeans, revealing more than a glimpse of her...uh, landing strip.

Huh? I checked the channel to see how I managed to set the DVR for some porn channel, but it was tuned to HBO and to the correct show. Surprised, I kept watching... and there went her shirt, then the guys pants then--yikes--a full view of the guy's balls.

WTF? Where was thirtysomething? Ok, then it cut to the next scene--I think it was a couple in a therapists office talking their struggles with infertility. Ok, that's more like it, I thought. Then they're sitting at the dinner table at the guy's parents house and they both get up and go into another room to laugh and bond over how horrible the mother-in-law is...and next thing you know, there's another patch of pubic hair and a boob and the guy's actual dick!

Maybe I'm remembering the sequence wrong, but what I do remember from that episode are: at least two scenes featuring girls' naked crotches, at least two sightings of a pretty realistic simulation of penetration, a few sets of balls, and, if I'm not mistaken, a guy actually ejaculating. Oh, and I forgot--a blow job and/or a hand job and a guy jerking off. And woven in between the sex scenes, a distinctly thirtysomething-ish storyline.

All in all, the show is good and the characters are interesting and likable, but what's up with the very gratuitous--and frequent--sex scenes? Don't get me wrong--I'm going to keep watching it--but I could do with less pubic hair and ball sightings and more thirtysomething-ish coffee talk scenes.

So I check my email this morning and in the "subject" column is this:

Augusten's Assistant

Had Augusten been obsessing over me since I emailed him and was now having his assistant email me to tell me he just HAD to meet me? Or was it someone who reads this blog writing to tell me something about Augusten's assistant?

This was the email:

Hi lovely folks,

It's Stewart, Augusten's assistant, and I wanted to (humbly) let you know about my debut novel that was recently published, ROCKSTARLET. It's a dishy, hollywood tale about a closeted rockstar, and based on your emails, I've chosen the people i think would enjoy...

How psyched am I that I am apparently in Augusten's assistant's address book? (or then again, it could be because I'm on the mailing list for Augusten's website? Surely not--remember my email conversation with him a few weeks ago?)

So skip the books I recommended yesterday and go buy this and we will discuss.

Wah!

Can you tell my husband (of all of 3 weeks) is out of the country by how much I'm posting? It sucks!

This cheered me up slightly. As did this.

Apologies to Augusten, who is still my soulmate, but there is actually one person I am more obsessed with than him: this guy. Sadly, I don't know his name--is it Maddox? All I know is that I swear to god his site is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Is it just me or are "Crappy child's art" #1 and #2 legendary for their humor value? I can still remember the first time I saw those pages and how I laughed harder than I ever laughed in my life--and that was at least 5 years ago and I still laugh just as hard every time I see them.

Anyway, I defy you to go to read this and not choke half to death from laughing so hard.

Documentaries

I don't know why but I'm a big fan of documentaries. I am beyond ignorant when it comes to anything related to politics, history, geography or economics, but for whatever reason I am all about documentaries about politics or economics (not so much history or geography...).

A few months ago I raved about Sicko and have since been up in arms about the health insurance system. It's the kind of thing I can't really think about too much because it just makes me so mad it ends up depressing me because it's such a lost cause--I don't even waste time trying to dispute the fact that my health insurance inexplicably denied payment for the exact same routine doctor visit that they have faithfully covered the other three times I've gone. After seeing that movie it just seems futile to waste time trying to plead my case--all to get them to count the full $120 out-of-pocket towards my $500 out-of-pocket per year limit. Even though it costs $120 out of my pocket, somehow they only will count $53 as my out-of-pocket expense. So I'm paying $100 a month to have the luxury of being able to go to "out of network" doctors--a privilege almost non-existent in these days of managed healthcare--yet before they will cover any of these out of network doctor visits I have to shell out an additional $500 per calendar year. Except now it turns out that the $500 limit isn't what actually comes out of my pocket; it's what they THINK should be coming out of my pocket. So even though I'm out $120, they only count it as $53. So basically, the $500 out of pocket limit becomes $1,200 a year for the insurance premium, then $500 THEN another who knows how much--at least double that--in out of pocket expenses that they consider to be outrageous or whatever.

So, as it's turning out, I can go on the much cheaper (half the cost per month) HMO insurance which covers the same as my current plan except no out of network benefits, and just pay the visits myself as I'm already doing, and I'd come out $50 richer every month. Anyway, I digress....I hadn't really thought of it that way until just now.

ANYWAY...back to today's documentary: Maxed Out. It's about the whole credit card debt crisis in this country. For some inexplicable reason I am fixated on the whole subject of debt and American excess. Don't ask me why because, as I said, I know nothing about economics or business; the main thing I know about money is how to spend (hence, I guess, the quest to keep my finances in line with horror stories of others' financial ruin). At any rate (no pun intended!), any news item, book or movie about anything having to do with crazy debt intrigues me.

Since I went off on that health insurance tangent I have now lost my train of thought about Maxed Out, but maybe that fact says it all about this movie: it wasn't that memorable. It was ok and I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who writes about financial issues. Actually, I am only a fan in principal, seeing as I have yet to actually read one of her books, although I have read excerpts from them in other favorite books like The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts. (like I said, I have for some reason become totally fixated on the subject of money, especially as it pertains to women and, in particular, women with children.)

ANYWAY, I clearly can't keep a straight train of thought here but I would say yes, you should see Maxed Out then read The Feminine Mistake and all of Elizabeth Warren's books, then we can discuss.

AugustenB

How psyched was I to open my gmail inbox and see an email from "AugustenB"?! I had emailed my new obsession, Augusten Burroughs, to tell him how great I think he is and also to ask him how he deals with the inevitable criticism that is inherent in any writer's line of work, let alone a memoirist's. I asked if he ever used to worry about it and, if so, how he overcame it. I never expected to hear back from him--although of course my fantasy was that he would read my email and realize we are psychic twins separated at birth and we would become best friends. The same fantasy I used to have about Oprah until I met her and realized we were not actually soulmates.

So I open my inbox the other day and gasped when I saw "AugustenB" in the "From" column. My fantasy had come true and Augusten had actually written me back! Ok, so the email was actually from his assistant, but still, isn't an email from Augusten's personal assistant almost as good as an email from Augusten himself? Here is what is said:

maggie-
first off, thanks for writing. i know augusten appreciates it.
i can't speak directly for him, but i do know that you can NEVER be a memoirist if you care what people think! augusten had a NEED to write about his life, and if he worried about what people were going to think, the writing would be stifled, and probably a lot less successful.
hope this helps and that you possibly get to meet augusten next year when he tours with his new book.
cheers,
stewart (augusten's assistant)

I love it how he says that Augusten had a NEED to write about his life and couldn't be bothered with what people might say about him or his writing. That is exactly why I am obsessed with him--first of all, because it is very evident in his writing that he had a "need" to write it and that need is what makes him such a magnificent writer. Secondly, I am obsessed with him because I love it that he doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about him, his life, his writing, etc--in spite of any negatives he is the one who, in the end, is a NYT best-selling author, sought-after speaker at various ivy-league colleges and just an overall genius and cultural icon. He is the embodiment of my life philosophy; namely, just wish for something hard enough and it will come true and no need to conform to "requirements" like advanced degrees or abiding by sociatal norms about what's ok to talk about and what's not.

Anyway, you can bet your ASS I will be meeting him next year when he tours with his new book.

Well that was fun yesterday—the first non-business thing I’ve ever had “published.” Or at least since college and a letter to the editor of Allure once. I don’t know how people who have real blogs like Leslie Morgan Steiner think of stuff to write about every day. I am trying to get used to writing in here more and it’s a struggle to think of what to write about—and nobody’s even reading this. To have hundreds (thousands?) of people reading my blog every day—I think I’d be a nervous wreck at all times worrying that I wouldn’t have anything to say/write about.

So last night I was skimming through all the comments on my post, marveling that so many people had read it and that it had spurred such conversation. I am not vain enough to think that my post was so special that it magically drew all those readers and inspired them to spar with each other; I know those same people read every day’s entry and then have cyber conversations via the comments section. But at any rate, it was interesting and gratifying to read the comments, especially the compliments about my writing.

I was caught off guard when, in the midst of all the serious comments—people sharing their own experiences with divorce, talking about that book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (which, incidentally, was one of the books I was talking about when I said I’d poured over countless books...that particular book was one that made me keep trying to make it work for as long as I did), and generally talking amongst themselves…someone suddenly said “Not for nothing but Maggie’s kind of hot.” WTF? I sure hadn’t expected that one…but of course the preener in me was flattered. They went on to say I looked like a former cheerleader—which I suppose was supposed to have been an insult but I took as a compliment, never having been anything close to a cheerleader. Ever. The closest I ever came was trying out for Pom-Poms in 7th grade at the urging of an outgoing friend—I was painfully self-conscious and probably looked at the floor the whole time, beet-red, while I messed up the moves to Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Do you Remember?” (are you impressed that I remember what song it was?!). I remember them telling us that we couldn’t wear makeup and being horrified because, at the age of 12, I was still constantly mistaken for a boy and, as a result, wore as much makeup as a 12 year-old could get away with.

At any rate, it was sort of jarring to have the comments about my blog post turn, momentarily, to what I looked like. I guess the feminist and intellectual in me was supposed to be totally offended and outraged--here I am, my big moment in the sun, my writing skills being showcased in however minor a way, and people start talking about how I look? Of course I mostly do feel like that....but then the other, dumb-(bottle) blonde in me is like "hey now!" and batting my eyelashes about the comments.

It was funny, though--and look--it gave me something to write about.

Wow--who knew that there was so much pent up (or maybe not pent up? Maybe these people go through life, hands clenched and jaw muscles coiled, just waiting for the next idiot to speak up so they can start the verbal attack?) rage out there! I didn't realize my piece for Washingtonpost.com was a hunk of meat being thrown to an angry mob poised to rip me personally. Um, I don't recall, in the piece, asking whether or not people thought I did the right thing--I was not looking for sympathy or confirmation that I did the right thing by leaving. I was throwing out the question is a mom who stays for the kids a better mom.

Regardless--I guess I shouldn't be surprised--just drive around town for a day and enjoy these same people behind the wheel in their cars. If reading a blog entry about some anonymous woman's divorce sets them off so much, just imagine how tolerant they are of the slow car in front of them or the person who refuses to crash a light.

I personally can barely string together thoughts, let alone words, this early in the morning.

Yoo hoo--if anyone is reading this, please consider donating to Kicking for Kids Who Can't--a fundraiser for the Limbs for Life Foundation.

How many of us take for granted the fact that our kids can run and swim and climb? I know I'm definitely guilty of this, and feel it's the least I can do to support a cause that helps kids who aren't as fortunate as mine.

Click here to donate

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Aw! How cute are we? ;)

I so need to move to Japan.

Conversation with a "neighbor" this morning. (I have lived in my townhouse for about a year and maybe spoken to this woman five times this year, the first time being when I moved in and told her I was recently divorced.)

She was on the sidewalk with her little boy, who was riding his bike. She lives three townhouses over from me. I had just pulled up in front of my house and gotten out of my car. We greeted each other and made small talk for a minute then I told her I am getting married and am in the process of moving out.

Her (look of shock and horror on her face): Wow, didn't you just get divorced
not even a year ago?

Me: Well, yes, but we were separated for a long
time before that.

Her: But still, I mean, you didn't even live here a
year. Wow, that's really fast.

Me (shrugging because I have no real
answer to rude comments from virtual strangers): Yeah, well, that's just life I
guess. So I'm moving out.

Her: When is the wedding?

Me: Tuesday.
We're going to Vegas.

Her (eyes widening more and look of disgust on her
face intensifying): Oh my god--wow--that's fast! Well, I mean it is your SECOND
wedding anyway. (referring to Vegas).

Me: Yep, that's right, we didn't
want to have a big wedding or anything. We were originally going to have a
wedding with just family.....(then I proceeded with my defensive/apologetic
ramble about how we were going to have a wedding, then blah, blah, blah we ended
up deciding to just go to Vegas. I somehow feel the need to go into expansive
detail when anyone asks, regardless of my relationship with that person.)

Her: Yeah, I guess so, since it's your second wedding and all. But of
course your kids are coming and your daughter is going to be the flower girl,
right?

Me: Oh yeah, of course! (in actuality my kids will be on vacation
with their dad and not at the wedding at all. We made this decision after lots
of conversation, consultation with shrink, etc.....there I go with the
defensiveness again.)

Her: Well, congratulations, I guess!

I think this was the most uncomfortable, most intrusive and rude response I've gotten so far, but many others aren't too far off this mark. Apparently everyone is an expert not only in my life over the past 15 years and every detail of my former marriage, but also my kid's emotional states, thought processes and overall mental health and well-being. And from this information they are, of course, more qualified than I am to decide what's best for me, my kids, and the course of my life.

What is wrong with people that they feel absolutely no shame or hesitation about expressing their opinions on my personal life? I mean, I know gossip is gossip and I don't really care what is said about me behind my back, but to look me in the eye and chastise me as if each one of them is a better parent and better person than I am, and of course better qualified to make decisions about my life--what's up with that? Is it because I open myself up to their criticism by trying to defend my decisions?

Well, anyway, we'll be sure to drink a toast to all the haters. Here's to your perfect lives and perfect parenting--and the lessons of tolerance and acceptance you're teaching your kids.

I've been hunting for the .wav file of Long Duck Dong in Sixteen Candles saying "We getting MALLIED" but am striking out. So, assuming you've seen the movie and know what I'm talking about, say it in your mind as you read this: We getting mallied!

Yes, I am getting married on Tuesday. For the second time, in case you don't already know that. We're going to Vegas, just the two of us, and getting married in our hotel room. I am so excited--for whatever reason, the concept of getting married in our room just seems very cool to me....and of course mostly excited because as of this time next week I will be married to the person I still can't believe I was lucky enough to find in this lifetime.

I was about to say the person I wish I had married the first time, but that's not entirely what I mean. Of course I do wish I had met Patrick years and years ago and that we could have had kids together, but then again, maybe part of what makes us so perfect together and makes me treasure what we have was my first--bad, wrong and broken--marriage.

At any rate, here's to finding true love and happiness and being lucky enough to experience both. Don't ever let anyone tell you that it doesn't exist or that you shouldn't even bother looking--they're wrong.